I was so bloody tempted to write about a million other more interesting things if not for this niggling thing which annoyed me so.

I wanted to write about my Nine Emperor God Festival experience – my first time ever going on a complete 8 day vegetarian diet, and my first time walking alongside the grand chariot procession along the streets of George Town and how I ended up watching mediums play with burning iron balls and such. Oh and how the deities entered their bodies. How the deities started to give instructions to the temple folks and admonish them. Yes! Admonish them!

But all these will need to be pushed aside for this very post where I am going to ask you – yes, you – a very strange question.

If you have a blog, what is your reason for starting one?

If you blog, are you obsessed with visitor and reader counts?

If you blog and no one reads, would you give up completely?

How many posts would you write before you’d throw your hands up in despair and say, I bloody quit?

If Noone’s Watching or Reading…

I met a young girl sometime ago.

She struck me as a girl with a good education.

She dressed neatly.

She spoke good English, not the halting sort. She had fluency with her words.

She had even worked abroad for a while.

She looked timid but then again, it could be that she was shy. Shyness and timidity could swap places at times.

She told me that she had a blog.

“Oh….” I raised my eyebrows a bit.

I love getting to know other bloggers. I am a bit nosey like that. There’s nothing more delicious than reading what goes on in other people’s minds. Other people’s lives are almost always a lot more interesting.

(Speaking of that, I am now neck-deep in Norwegian Wood, a book which everyone says I must read if only to delve into the brilliant mind of Japanese novelist, Haruki Murakami. Roll his name in your mouth a few times. Even his name sounds like something poetic already. More of that in another post.)

“But I only have 3 posts.”

“Why is that?”

“I stopped writing because none of my friends read.”

If I had been eating a grilled ham sandwich, I would’ve choked.

She says she likes to write. This was way before she admitted she had a blog. Even that I had to persuade it out of her.

So that got me thinking – would you stop writing if no one’s reading?

I wouldn’t.

Because I started this blog to vent, to record, to sharpen my own writing and thinking process. I read my older posts and start going down memory lane, the people I’ve met, the experiences I went through.

Blogging to me is so much fun.

It allows me to be free for a while, away from business, from marketing, from clients. For me, it is a sacred space. Like a room where you go just to take time to be, my blog chronicles my own growing up over the last 9 years or so. (Yes, I am in my 30s but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped growing up … inside.)

At times I have been stumped for words. I have had too many things to say. Or sometimes none at all. But a blog is like a friend. It tolerates all my moods and moments well. I write when I am indignant, when I am mad, when I am upset. I find words flow better when I am all hot inside.

I knew you would. 😉 At least we have a gang who wouldn’t care less if no one’s watching or reading or commenting. But I know a lot of people lurk around this blog – the reticent Asian I suppose. But to you people who read, please note that I am flattered to no end. I am grateful for that. But like you said, unkaleong – it’s a bloody good journal as well! Well said!

i have 3 blogs – one for good days, one for bad and another for everything in between. i don’t actually know if anyone reads it, unless someone leaves a comment, which i think only happened once before; i don’t keep track.
my blogs are my secret hiding places from reality. i use my real name, but i don’t give it out to people who know me; i don’t reject giving it out, just that no one asks for it.
my husband knows of the blogs, but i doubt he reads it, or even remembers the addresses.
so yes, i would keep a blog with no readership.

Hi Ellie: Sometimes I just feel like starting another blog just to get out of the limelight. At some point I feel that too many people are reading my blog and that wasn’t even my intention in the first place. Thanks for affirming the belief that yes, sometimes all we want is to be anonymous. In a way I really think that being a celebrity is the same – everyone wants to know what you’re doing to the point that you wish you could disappear or reappear with a new name. 😉 So those people who want to be famous folks…well, the downside is you get no private life anymore.